Apocryphal Rhythms
by Zero's Wings
Summary: A quiet, serious character analysis fic about Rei. Will later include a friendship developing between her and a traumitized Shinji. Chapter 10 Revised!! Please R&R!!
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own this wonderful, thought-provoking series, GAINAX does. And I really shouldn't have to say this, but, don't read this until you've finished the series. There might be spoilers along the way.

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Apocryphal Rhythms

Part1: Perception of Space/Melancholia****

****

by ZERØ's Wings

R. Ayanami.

The rusted sign with its barely readable letters. A box containing a label that meant almost nothing to her. 

Her room was another box. 

Rei Ayanami III saw boxes everywhere. Her mind sorted life as a geometric equation. There were variables and radicals and variations, and she found them easier to ignore or work around then to intercept and dissect. She narrowed everything to a single line that she could measure. Then she would walk across that line with foresight and confidence. Her life was dedicated to catching up with her prescience.

Rei's pills were kept in a box too. They were bitter pills that replaced a bitter tasting liquid. The pills kept Rei lithe and graceful, physically beautiful. She didn't connect them with the fact that she had developed late-night insomnia, awoken by horrible pains in her stomach. The pills also kept her sterile. Barren. She didn't know this, but she wouldn't have objected to it either. 

Rei swallowed her pills with the water from a beaker on her desk. As she put the beaker down, she noticed something: Commander Ikari's glasses. _His_ eyes, the windows to _his_ soul: they were kept in a neat little box too. She took them out of their case and held them delicately at first. Then, anger rose up in her as she thought of all the contradictions in her Commander. All the lies, all the deception. _What was the truth? What am I?_ She noticed that she had been clutching the glasses so tightly, that she had almost broken the turtle-shell frames. Rei decided not to waste the effort, but she found she was crying again anyway. _Why do I cry?_ She thought. _It just wastes energy and keeps me from thinking_. _What purpose does it serve?_

Rei put the glasses back and walked to the bathroom. There was a pile of bloody bandages in the sink. She passed them; wiping foreign-feeling tears from her eyes, and sat down on the toilet with a mournful expression. Rei cracked each knuckle on her right hand. They made popping sounds like rolling thunderclaps.

Rei opened her hand and stared at it again, her eyes narrowing to vermilion slits. "I'm getting old," she whispered.

"Old hag," Rei blurted suddenly. She crinkled up her short nose until it was nearly swallowed in her pale face. "No use for you, now."

She shivered, remembering the cold LCL dripping from her body. She had walked out and found Dr. Naoko Akagi standing over the dead Rei I. The doctor was sobbing uncontrollably. Rei II knelt down and cradled her alter ego like a porcelain doll, and she began to cry as well. 

With a feral scream, the newly awakened Rei expanded her AT field. She took this fiery brilliance that engulfed her soul, and struck the doctor with the same divine force that rained brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Dr. Akagi plummeted down silently; her arms open wide. She embraced the metal bulkhead that enclosed Melchior's hard drive like a lover, and her body was mashed horribly in return by the unforgiving steel.

Rei quickly closed the outstretched hand, shutting away the memory. A wave of discomfort hit at the base of her spine and carried itself up toward her brain. She thought she would vomit at first, and brought a hand to her mouth, then the pain invaded her mind and she bit into the flesh of her palm. It kept her from disturbing her neighbors with that awful screaming.

Rei got off the toilet, flushed, and washed her hands.

*****

Commander Gendo Ikari and Rei Ayamani III were in the main elevator of Central Dogma, descending into the abyss through a double-helix shaft. Rei stood perfectly still; an albino obelisk. Commander Ikari took his hands out of his pockets and made tight, tense fists.

"Sir?" Rei asked uncertainly.

"Yes Rei, what is it?" Commander Ikari's somber expression finally broke. He looked at her compassionately, his roughly hewn, angular face softening for just a moment.

"I noticed something the other day…" Rei said slowly. "I don't have a pulse. Am I dead?" Gendo chuckled. It was an odd, wispy noise. Rei frowned.

"No, my child," he said, caressing her chin with a gloved hand. "You are very much alive," Gendo continued, "You simply do not have a heart beating in your breast. Your circulatory system is controlled by a super-solenoid organ. When we recovered the fourth angel's core, Dr. Akagi found that it controlled the angel's blood pressure and circulation. She experimented with the applications of this in the instrumentality project, and your current body is the result." His hand receded from her slowly. She had come to hate his touch. He made her feel like a possession.

"Am I an angel?" Rei asked fearfully, almost as a whisper.

"In a word, no. However, calling you human is also an oversimplification. You are unique, and you were created with a single purpose it mind."

Rei nodded, her mind swimming with uncertainties. She carried some worth to Gendo, but she would always be an implement of his, first and foremost. She was an extension of him; he loved and cherished her as he did any part of him. She was an extension of his right hand, a lock for the key.

"Your S2 organ holds your essence. It holds memory of experiences that constitute you, Rei. It also makes it easier for us to transfer your soul to another vessel."

"Yes, the dummy system. I'm the third one."

"And the last. But you won't die again. Your AT field has matured. You will soon discard it, join Lillith, and begin to draw humanity to its ultimate existence."

"Commander Ikari," she whispered. "Please explain to me, how am I not an angel?" _If I were, Ikari's son would have to kill me._ She felt a lead weight drop to the bottom of her stomach. _Kaoru. Would I die in the same manner as you?_ She imagined her head tumbling into a sea of LCL, and was nearly sick from the thought. 

"In truth, Rei, every person is what we have identified as an 'angel.' Humanity, or Lillum, is the Final Angel."

"So no one will be required to kill me?"

Gendo laughed at this, disturbing Rei further. She was the only living person to have ever heard him do so. "Very soon," he said, pushing his new glasses up on the bridge of his nose, "the distinction between life and death will lose all its meaning."

*****

Commander Ikari looked away as Rei dutifully stripped off her plug suit. She shivered as she climbed into her private synchronization plug in the depths of central dogma. The opening of the tube was vacuum-locked with a sharp hiss, and she smiled at the Commander when he turned around again. While he began working at a console beside the tube, Rei closed her eyes, waiting for the plug to fill up with LCL so she could breathe again. As she stood there, naked, cold, and slowly suffocating, she began humming the opening piano bars of "Fur Elise."

Finally, the LCL bled into the tube and filled it up. She willingly took the liquid into her mouth and nostrils, despite its acrid, coppery taste. Rei closed her eyes and imagined being on a hill overlooking the sparkling city and the serene moon, and lying back peacefully in a blanket of wildflowers. Just as she had surrendered to the delicious tranquility of it all, black clouds twisted up around the pale blue moon, covering it as they cast a shadow over her pallid face. Those clouds smelled like murder. They were full of pain. She could see them burgeoning under the weight of some evil, poisonous content, and they released it suddenly with violent tails of lightning.

Rei was suddenly immersed in a layer of orange bubbles, signaling the release of the vacuum lock. She crept out of the tube on shaky feet. Gendo held out a towel and she wrapped it around herself.

"Your bio-fusion rate has dropped six percent," he said, frowning uncertainly.

"I'm sorry, sir," Rei said, her blue-tinged hair hanging down over her eyes in sopping bristles.

"Yes," he sighed, "it is disappointing." _Disappointing_. She recoiled from the word as though it had bitten her.

"I will improve," Rei said, resolute and confident.

"You must. It is imperative that Lillith does not reject you when the chosen day comes. The third impact is almost completely triggered by mental forces. It takes a well-rounded, emotionally stable being to interact with an angel effectively."

"Yes sir," she answered quickly. _Well-rounded? Emotionally stable? Aren't I those things already?_ she wondered.

Gendo was quiet for a moment, searching for the most correct choice of words. At last he said, with some apprehension: "Take a day off, Rei. Do something that you truly enjoy." He gave her a crumb of a smile, a brief, insignificant stroke; then stepped on his private elevator to Terminal Dogma. As she put dried off and put her plug suit back on, Rei pondered the Commander's words. She supposed they were meant to bring her comfort, but they succeeded only in confusing her further.

End Part 1 

Author's Note: Please review my fic if you happen to read it. It's my first attempt at an Eva story. The next part will focus on both Shinji and Rei, along with more character analysis. So please, tell me if you liked this part, thought it sucked, or was something in between.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own this wonderful, thought-provoking series, GAINAX does. And I really shouldn't have to say this, but, don't read this until you've finished the series. There might be spoilers along the way.

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Apocryphal Rhythms

Part 2

****

by ZERØ's Wings

Shinji was curled up in a fetal position on his bed. Track 26, Beethoven's 9th, was playing on his SDAT. The small window over his reading desk looked out upon a cold, grey world of rain. Usually, Shinji would've taken comfort at being wrapped up in a warm bed, safe from the storm outside. Tonight, however, it only intensified his misery. His ceiling, while offering him no comfort, was at least familiar. So was the music that quietly marched on behind his eyes. An 'Ode to Joy,' on a rainy day with a heart full of sorrow. 

Shinji wished his bed would swallow him up, and he would never have to see or touch another person in his entire life. He had killed one of the few people who was ever kind to him, saving a race of people who were always cruel or indifferent. Shinji now remembered a dream in which he was on a train car, staring at his own shadow-covered visage as it sat across from him, tormenting him with questions. He had pleaded desperately for someone to be nice to him, and now he cursed that wish. It only made things more difficult, for anyone who touched him became death.

Asuka was still alive now, but she had been catatonic in a hospital bed for almost a week. Shinji felt responsible for her as well, he had always taken her abrasiveness to heart, believing he was at fault for her inexhaustible hostility. Now she was dead to the world, because of him. Always, because of him. _I'm a spineless coward_, he thought. _That is why my friends suffer._

Ode to Joy faded out, and the tape skipped back to the beginning. 'One is the Loneliest Number' by Three Dog Night came on. Shinji decided to turn the music off.

The phosphorescent green letters on Shinji's alarm clock read 3:15. He hadn't slept for days. Not since _that_ day. He was afraid of what nightmares might come to him. He was afraid his mind would dredge up Kaoru's corpse, especially the contented smile on his severed head. Shinji walked to the refrigerator in a sleepless, living death. He got a glass of milk and sat down at the table in Misato's kitchen. His insides churned violently, and he felt tired all the time. His mind was quietly tearing him apart.

Against his own will, Shinji's memory took him back to the day when he killed Kaoru. He remembered climbing out of the Eva, having been towed up out of Terminal Dogma through the main shaft of the geofront. Rei was the first person to greet him on the walkway outside Unit 01. She was staring at him dispassionately, confused by his soft, tormented crying and shivering. He nearly collapsed to the floor as she approached him, and he instead stumbled forward and embraced her, desperate for the support of another. She looked down at his crumpled form, sobbing on her shoulder, and had no idea what to do. Finally, she returned his embrace, stiffly lowering her arms like a forklift so they settled around him.

Shinji was grateful that she at least did that, and was able to calm himself and dry his tears. The inner peace that Rei had unwittingly given him was shattered in the next moment though, as Shinji's father approached on the walkway. Shinji's sorrow evaporated into thin air, blasted from his mind by his sheer hatred for the man he was forced to call 'father.' Gendo Ikari stood there with the same dispassionate look that Rei greeted him with, and muttered: "Good work, Shinji."

No words could've hurt the boy more. Burning hatred rushed up through his gut and into his throat. The feeling was so overwhelming and painful, Shinji thought he would explode from the inside out. "Fuck you!" he spat in a vile tone. "I hate you!!" He rushed toward his father, head down, and slammed home, viciously pummeling his father's stomach with his raw fists.

Gendo Ikari stood motionless, watching his son express his rage by weakly punching him in the gut over and over. He was fed up with his son's insolence, but outwardly showed no anger. Instead, he calmly pulled a taser out of his pocket and pressed it against Shinji's right temple. The boy jerked spastically as sheets of brilliant, stinging pain washed over his body and paralyzed it. He fell back in a crooked fashion, splaying out across the deck in front of Gendo and Rei.

Shinji remembered flowing in and out of consciousness, with waves of pain ebbing and flowing in his head. He remembered the self-satisfied grin on his father's face. It vanished as his father saw Rei's expression, which was one of true anger and disgust. He opened the palms of his scarred hands, offering them to her with a surprised, questioning look on his face. She maintained her angry glare, and spoke to him in an incensed, clipped whisper.

"Was that really necessary?" she asked.

Shinji was silently cheering for Rei. He was so glad that she had finally found some distrust toward his father's actions. If he hadn't been paralyzed from the neck down, he would've jumped up and kissed her for that. His father simply shrugged back at her, turned on his heel, and left. 

Shinji tilted his head, ignoring the awful tremors of pain that wracked his body, and watched his father leave. He had seen his father's back more than his face. In fact, the image of his father walking away, deserting him, was the quintessential image of his childhood. It was what had shaped him most, and had made him realize just how little his father really cared about him.

Shinji noticed that the glass of milk in his hand had been broken in a clenched fist. As his anger faded back into sorrow, Shinji softened his grip around the glass. He released it finally, letting milk run out from under his fingers and pool onto the table. The milk was colored pink.

There was a soft knock at the front door. Shinji turned around, bleary-eyed. _Who would come over at this hour?_ he wondered.

Shinji quickly cleared off the table and placed the broken glass in the sink. He approached the door, trying to focus his eyes in the dim light. He fumbled with the latch and swung the door open with a groan. Rei was on the other side of the door, staring forward in an alert but undemanding fashion.

"Ayanami," he said with a yawn, "what are you doing here so late?" 

"Were you sleeping?" she asked, curious rather than concerned.

"Actually, no," he admitted. "I've been having trouble sleeping these past few days."

"Oh." She said simply. She folded her hands behind her back and waited patiently. He simply stared back, his eyes bloodshot and his hair a tangled mess. "May I come in?" she asked finally.

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure," he mumbled, taking his hand off the doorway arch to let her by. As she walked forward, she noticed the cuts on his hand.

"You are bleeding," she said quietly.

End Part 2


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own this wonderful, thought-provoking series, GAINAX does. And I really shouldn't have to say this, but, don't read this until you've finished the series. There might be spoilers along the way.

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Apocryphal Rhythms

Part 3****

****

by ZERØ's Wings

As Rei stepped into the light of Shinji's doorway, his eyes focused on her and she became more than a muddled silhouette. She was wearing a white blouse and blue jeans, with a brown overcoat draped over her shoulders. Shinji would've found her laid-back manner of dress startling, had he not been too tired to notice. He did notice, however, that she was completely soaked from head to toe. Her short, delicate blue hair was sopping wet and matted down to the sides of her head. Large drops of water fell from the split ends that stuck out in front of her face. Her shoes were encased in thick mud that had also splashed up onto her jeans.

Shinji took her wet coat and hung it in the front hall closet. "You walked here in the rain?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes."

"At this hour?"

"Yes."

He blinked twice. "Why?"

She searched for words. "Commander Ikari told me to. Not directly, but I extrapolated with my own preferences."

"Ummm, okay," Shinji said slowly, puzzled as always by Rei's behavior.

"I did not wish to be alone," she said softly, more deliberately. 

_I know how you feel_, Shinji thought to himself. If Rei had visited earlier that week, after Shinji learned of the dummy system, her presence would've been unbearable. But since Kaoru's death, Shinji had been desperate for some human contact. He appreciated her company, especially this late at night.

"Boy, you really got soaked out there," he said sheepishly. "Maybe I could, umm, get you some dry clothes?"

She shook her head. "I enjoy wearing these clothes."

"But wouldn't you be more comfy in something dry? I mean, you must be cold."

"Being cold does not bother me," Rei said. She looked at his right hand again, and saw the cuts overflowing with fresh blood. She winced, vicariously experiencing pain just through looking at another's injury. She'd rather be hurt herself than see another in pain. "Aren't you going to attend to your hand?" she asked, a bit of concern creeping into her voice on a subconscious level.

"Oh, uh yeah," Shinji stuttered, looking at his injured hand for the first time. They were bad cuts, but he hadn't felt a thing. His body had become appropriately numb to physical injuries. The mental scarring had overridden them. He walked back into the kitchen and put his hand under some warm water.

Shinji kept his hand under the water until his fingertips started to get wrinkly. He finally noticed this, and turned the water off. He had been too busy staring at Rei. She only returned his gaze, in a cold, yet somehow hypnotic fashion. He searched desperately for something to say.

"Funny, what you said, about not being cold," he blurted eagerly. "I get cold so easily. I'd much rather be warm."

"I dislike warm temperatures," Rei countered. "I would actually rather be too cold than too hot in any situation. However, I _do_ dislike being wet. Perhaps I would like to borrow some dry clothes."

"Sure, I think Asuka might have some clothes that will fit you."

"She is sleeping, though."

"Uh, yeah, that's right," Shinji said. _For all we know, she might be brain-dead_, he thought to himself. 

"Then I will not impose upon her. Anything you have will be fine."

"Rei, I hate to bring this up, but…" he turned beet red, "…I don't have any dry underwear that will fit you."

 "That's all right," she said in calm, measured tones. "My shirt and pants got the most wet. I don't require new underwear."

"Oh, okay." Shinji turned away from Rei to hide his blush and quickly adjust his pants. "Well, there should be fresh clothes in the laundry room. It's the last door on the left. My room is right across from it. You can change in there."

Rei nodded. "Thank you, Ikari-kun."

*****

Rei emerged from Shinji's bedroom wearing a floppy red and green sweatshirt and grey sweatpants. She sighed contentedly and let her hands disappear into the overlong sleeves. These clothes were remarkably comfortable for her, especially after having worn those mud-soaked jeans that were too tight in the first place. Rei noticed a pleasant aroma wafting up from the kitchen. She gingerly stepped through the hall past a sleeping Misato and went into the kitchen, the only lit room in the whole house.

Shinji was standing by the sink, wearing an apron with cartoon sushi on it and yellow oven mitts. He was holding a small iron pot, the contents of which were pleasantly steaming and burbling. "I made some chicken soup," he said. "But, I know you don't like meat, so I just put in the broth. It's the best thing you can have on a cold, rainy day." He gave her a cheesy grin and distributed the soup into two bowls with a ladle. 

They sat at the table with the soup and a comfortable silence. When Rei finished her soup, she brought her legs up into the chair and pulled the baggy sweatshirt down over them.

"More comfortable?" he asked.

Rei nodded, yawning delicately.

"Maybe we should try getting some sleep," Shinji offered. "My bed is free."

"Ikari, I do not think it would be appropriate for us to occupy the same bed for the night," she said quietly.

Shinji turned red once again. "Of-Of course not!!" he yelled emphatically. "What I meant was, you can have my bed, and I'll take the couch. I completely agree with you!"

Rei smiled. Shinji was taken aback. He had never seen her smile since the self-detonation of Unit-00, and only to his father or when he asked her before that. This was the first time he had ever seen her smile of her own free will. Rei smiled because she knew that Shinji was completely honest with her, and not take advantage of her surface-level vulnerabilities.

"Thank you again, Ikari. I enjoyed the time we have spent together." She uncurled herself from the sweatshirt and got up from the table. Shinji watched in silence as she deposited her empty bowl in the sink and walked off to his bedroom. Shinji scratched the back of his neck and sighed. _God, I was tripping over my own feet every two seconds. She must think I'm a total moron._ He didn't really believe this, but his mind simply was not yet ready to let him be happy again. It was ready to let him sleep again, however. So he slept, and he did not worry about what nightmares might come to him.

End part3 

Author's Note: So, what do you think? Still like it? Think it got better or worse? Most importantly: Do you want to read more of it? 


	4. Chapter 4

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Apocryphal Rhythms

Part4****

****

by ZERØ's Wings

There was a flash of orange and white light. "Wait!!" he screamed, groping frantically from the center of the void. The light was gone. So was Tokyo-3. So was…

"Rei!"

Shinji screamed her name again, suddenly pulled from his dream. He was lying on the hard, cold wood floor next to his bed. His eyes fluttered open and he was staring straight into the face of Rei Ayanami III. She was standing so close that she could've licked the sweat off the bridge of his nose.

Rei wore a blank expression, like the first page of an unwritten novel. Her eyes did not have their usual ruby tinge, they were more of a rust color, and her pupils were dilated. Her mouth was a short, lipless line between her chin and phyltrm. 

"You were calling my name," she said. "You were in pain."

"I…" Shinji struggled to catch his breath. He felt like he had the wind knocked out of him. If he had the ability to speak, the first words out of his mouth would've been "I shouldn't have fallen asleep."

"You fell off the couch. I believe you were dreaming."

"I…I was having a nightmare," Shinji finally managed.

Rei looked at him questioningly, turning her head to one side in a curious, bird-like motion.

"You know, a…a bad dream."

Rei frowned. "I have only had good dreams, Ikari-kun, and not even many of those."

"Lucky you," he muttered, lifting himself back onto the couch. Rei moved back a bit and helped him get his legs back up. "I stopped sleeping after I killed Ka…the last angel. Every time I did, my mind would just find every bad memory and bring it back to me."

"A bad memory with me in it?" Rei asked, still puzzled.

"I was…" Shinji stopped; his eyes were filling up with tears.

Rei reached out with a single hand, as if to urge him on. Shinji turned away from her suddenly.

"I was…I was dreaming of the day you died!!" he yelled, and then he began to cry openly. "You…you shouldn't even be here!" he sobbed. "What is my father doing with you?" he demanded, coughing in harsh spasms.

Rei plopped down on the couch beside Shinji. His words had struck her so suddenly and surprisingly, that she could no longer stand. Her knees quaked beneath her, but she couldn't even feel them. She felt like her head had spouted wings and flown off, leaving her body far behind. "I died?" she said in a breathless whisper. "I have no memory of that event."

"I do." Shinji dried his eyes on the cuff of his nightshirt. "The truth is, I don't even know if you're the real you. Or if there is a real you." Shinji shook his head. His mind hurt to think about all of it. _The dummy system_. Its very name was like a curse to him. It was the thing he hated most, after his father, and it came from Rei, one of the few people he cared deeply about.

"I am the same person that I have always been. My mind constitutes the same memories of my predecessors. My personality is shaped from the same experiences as Rei I and Rei II."

"I want to believe you," Shinji said, tears still wavering in his eyes. "I just don't know if I can. After you died, you came back like a different person."

 "I am Rei Ayanami," she blurted out, the words coughed up from the deepest corners of her mind. "I am neither false nor fake. I am me." She spoke definitively, commandingly, with a sureness Shinji had never heard before.

Shinji leaned forward and put a hand on Rei's left cheek. His hand was shaking as he brought it toward her, then it felt like sparks and heat were leaping from it as it rested on her face. He swallowed hard and steadied the hand. _I can't believe I just did that_, he thought. Neither could Rei.

She was startled by this action and her first instinct was to pull away from his touch, but she wouldn't let herself. Rei could no longer afford to be cold and calculated with Shinji. She could no longer afford to treat him as part of her geometric equation. She opened her mouth to speak, but Shinji covered it with the same hand.

"I have to say something first," he said gently. "I'm sorry Rei. I'm sorry I doubted you."

Rei took Shinji's hand and wrapped it between both of hers. "It's all right," she said. "I enjoyed spending time with you, and that is all I meant to do."

Shinji gave her a questioning look.

"Commander Ikari gave me a day to do something I truly enjoy. I came here to find out what that is."

"Well," he began, an honest grin spreading across his face for the first time in weeks, "I'm sure we can find something more fun to do with your day off."

Shinji made scrambled eggs for breakfast. Rei declined, explaining that she disliked eating eggs just as she disliked meats. Shinji apologized profusely. She had toast instead. No butter, no jelly, just toast. It was what she ate for breakfast every morning for as long as she could remember. 

Midway through their meal, Misato barged into the kitchen, in varying states of undress. Just out of the shower, she was drying her wet hair with one towel as she tried to keep another wrapped loosely around her torso, and was somehow rummaging through the fridge at the same time. She pulled out some milk and drank it straight from the carton, then tossed it back in.

Rei sat and watched this unruly behavior silently, her hands folded in front of her mouth with her fingers interlaced. When Misato finally left, taking her frenzied commotion with her, and Rei and Shinji were left to sip their after-breakfast tea in peace. 

"Misato's not much of a morning person," Shinji explained with a sheepish grin. 

"She did not seem to be aware of our presence," Rei stated calmly. She finished her tea and sat, interlacing her fingers beneath her mouth, watching the bizarre, illogical world turn around her.

They both finished their tea and Shinji washed the dishes by hand. He took up the frying pan he had cooked his eggs in and scrubbed the grit from it with a fastidious zeal. Rei simply sat and watched, impressed by his thorough upkeep of the apartment. Rei thought for a moment of how dirty and disorganized her own apartment was. She remembered the day Shinji stopped by and cleaned the place up. She had thanked him, something she had never done before to anyone. _Not even to him… _Rei joined Shinji at the sink to finish washing the dishes.

*****

"Are you at all concerned about the U.N.'s seizure of Units 05 through 13?" Fuyutsuki demanded. "SEELE has already proven that it will use any means to destroy us." Gendo Ikari was mixing his tea using a stainless-steel tea ball on a delicate link chain. He put the tea aside and swiveled at his desk to meet Fuyutsuki's stare.

"They are minions derived from Adam. They will not overcome Unit 01, as they have no souls. I am more concerned with Rei. Her latest bio-fusion rate with the Lillith sample was unsatisfactory."

"Have you considered that you are perhaps too concerned with Rei?" Fuyutsuki, like everyone around Gendo, was disgusted by Gendo's treatment of his own true son, while giving all the latitude in the world to a girl who was neither his daughter nor his wife, but a ghostly apparition that combined the two. It drew too many disturbing comparisons.

"Fuyutsuki, if I wanted to hear this, I would simply have another meeting with SEELE. I want you here for your loyalty…and friendship." Gendo was becoming tired of everyone's constant criticism of Rei. It seemed everyone had an unkind word for the person he loved most in his later life. In his life after Yui…

"But as a true friend," Fuyutsuki said in desperation, "I cannot placate you if you go down a path toward madness."

Gendo turned an angry glare to his longtime friend. His scarlet tinged glasses amplified the ferocity in his eyes. "I certainly hope you trust me more than that," he said in a dangerous tone.

"I do, I do," Fuyutsuki replied, his argument thwarted.

"Very well, then," Gendo said, completely somber once more. "I gave Rei a day to sort out her feelings. I suggested she do something that she truly enjoys. I'm sure she has no idea what that might be, but if she does discover something that she truly enjoys, it should raise her mental stability and ensure bio-fusion."

"You seem afraid she will follow a path similar to that of the second child."

"There are safeguards against that happening. Rei simply needs to focus herself on the task at hand. Perhaps some down time will help her regain her concentration."

Fuyutsuki scoffed at this silently. _Can't you see it, Ikari? She's breaking away from you. She has finally received access to her own humanity, and so the timid Yui in her has gone dormant. The angel in her will awake soon, and partake upon Rei all its wrath and fury._

Gendo left his desk suddenly, and walked toward the mammoth double doors at the other end of his office. He stepped briskly over the Sephirothic System of the Ten Divine Names that was projected onto the marble flooring. Gendo reached the large doors and opened them, spilling blood red light into the hallway before him. Gendo turned and called back to his second-in-command: "The third impact is close at hand. I trust you to keep everything running smoothly until the incept date."

Fuyutsuki nodded. "Of course. What else did you hire me for?" Two friends shared a familiar, comfortable smile. It was the last time they would ever be comfortable, because as of tomorrow, they would be too busy orchestrating the coming apocalypse. God had created earth in six days, and they would have just as many to destroy it.

Gendo let the door swing shut with a yawning scrape across the marble flooring, and its thunderous slam home had all the fury and certainty of dogmatic law.

End part4 


	5. Chapter 5

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Apocryphal Rhythms

Part5****

****

by ZERØ's Wings

Goldberg Variation No. 30, "Quodlibet," reached its spiritual climax, then fell away, absorbing a last few seconds of air and sound before evaporating completely. Rei and Shinji waited in silence, hoping for more to come, but the suite was over. Shinji exhaled in a contented sigh; then turned off the stereo. Rei had asked Shinji to do something with her that he truly enjoyed. They had been listening to classical music for hours. 

"I enjoyed that very much," Rei said in quiet admiration.

"Yeah, Bach is one of my favorite composers. I really like the Brandenburg Concertos too," Shinji added.

"Music is good for the soul."

Shinji nodded. "It certainly helps me sort things out. I'm almost never alone without some kind of music playing in the background."

"Does it help you fight that? That feeling of loneliness?" Rei asked this in an almost pleading voice. For as long as she could remember, she had been afraid of being alone. Despite that deep fear, Rei had spent most of her life by herself, and she often _felt_ alone even when she was part of a group. 

"I don't know," Shinji said, shaking his head. "I always have my thoughts, but sometimes it seems as if even they have turned against me. I often wish I had someone who didn't ask so much of me, or place so many hopes in me, but would just listen to me, and allow me to place hopes in them."

Rei instantly recognized all these traits in herself. In fact, she was so surprised and moved by Shinji's words that she blurted out a response loudly and quickly, completely uncharacteristic of her usual speaking tones. "But! I am--"

"I know," Shinji cut her off. "I found all those traits in you, Ayanami. That's why I enjoy spending time with you…even when every fact that surrounds you frightens me."

Rei had difficulty keeping tears from coming to her own eyes. She had cried before, and she understood that it was a manifestation of her sorrow. But now, she understood why Shinji had tears in his eyes after the battle with the fifth angel. She reached up quickly and deposited a single tear in the palm of her right hand. It rested there, in the groove below her fingers. Rei knew that the tiny, reflective bead of water in her hand was her first tear shed out of pure joy.

Rei blinked her eyes furiously, and the world around her became watery and distorted. She closed her tear-filled eyes and let the world melt away. A moment later she opened them again and everything was back to normal. Shinji was staring at her, his eyes wide with concern.

"Are you all right?" he asked. She nodded and brushed the single tear off on her sweatshirt. She had regained her composure. Shinji never saw the tear she shed, or the ones in her eyes, but he was reacting to the deep blush that appeared on her pale, milky white skin.

"Yes," Rei answered simply. "I need a bath."

*****

Rei laid back in Shinji's tub and closed her eyes. She had been soaking in that tub for a little over twenty minutes, and she hadn't even washed her hair. It was the longest bath she had ever taken. She slowly brought her thin, delicate legs up out of the water, feet first, and rested them on the porcelain outer lip of the tub, just above the faucet. Her toes were starting to get wrinkly.

_Bad memories always seem to find me in the bath_, she thought. She leaned her head forward and let the tips of her cerulean blue hair dangle on the clear, wavering membrane of water. _Does Ikari really trust me? Or does he just think I'm a doll, like everyone else? _She closed her eyes fiercely, painfully, and tried not to cry. She hated how people saw her. She especially hated how the commander saw her.

Rei dolefully scrubbed shampoo into her hair. She thought for a moment, then dunked her head under the water and watched the soapy bubbles disperse in front of her eyes. _I could drown right here, and nothing would be any different,_ she thought. _I would return to nothingness. I would not have to wait for **him** to abandon me. I would not have to wait for that day._

_See? Look deep within yourself._

Do you perceive the almost intangible, invisible presence that lurks in your darkest dreams?

Rei was frightened. She didn't want to lose herself. She wanted to exist. Living in pain was worse than not existing.

It is there that your true identity lies.

Rei felt like she was on the edge of a vast canyon, in the depths of which laid comprehension of the entire universe. Her external body was numb, coldly soaking in the tub, which was millions of miles away. That is where Rei realized something. She was afraid. So horribly afraid. She had reached the edge of the canyon, and it frightened her. What if she stopped existing? What if she never existed at all? These questions were her fear of heights.

*****

Rei brought her head up, out of the water, and sharply breathed in life. She pushed those thoughts from her mind with all her remaining strength.

_No, I am me. I became me through the instrumentality of the links and relationships I share with others. I am formed by my interaction with others._

Shinji… End part5 


	6. Chapter 6

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Apocryphal Rhythms

Part6****

****

by ZERØ's Wings

Fuyutsuki marched briskly down one of NERV's white-tiled corridors, trailed by a huddled group of doctors and lab workers wearing clean suits. They were carting along a stainless-steel examination table, hovering busily over it even as they walked. Fuyutsuki reached a large set of bay doors with the red NERV emblem splashed across it. He placed his ID card in the waiting terminal by the door, and it confirmed with a high-pitched chirp and a flash of green light across the access panel. He stepped back as the doors parted vertically with the sound of shuffling metal. Gendo Ikari stood monolithic behind the doors, catching all in a stern glare.

"Sir, I believe we have found the cause of Rei's dropping synch rate with the Lillith sample." Fuyutsuki addressed his commander in a low, monotonous tone. He backed away from the examination table and gestured to the white sheet laid upon it. The sheet was covering a human shape, too small to be an adult, yet long and gangly nonetheless.

"What have you found?" Gendo asked impatiently. As he spoke, he removed his satin gloves and replaced them with rubber ones. Fuyutsuki did the same. They both removed their outer jackets and snapped on sterile facemasks. As the highest-ranking members of NERV, they could forgo the tedious process of a complete decontamination.

The head clean-suited scientist cleared his throat and began to read from a clipboard. "This sample separated itself from the main Lillith body in Terminal Dogma at 07:07:00 this morning." Gendo nodded and they removed the sheet. The fluttering sound of the fabric hung in the air for a moment as the entire lab fell silent.

"Impossible," Gendo muttered. His expression, one of confusion and perhaps even fear, disturbed Fuyutsuki greatly. He had never seen his commander look like _that_, not since the day Yui was lost.

Beneath the sheet, stark white with a freakish grin plastered to his face, was the body of Kaoru Nagisa.

"Lillith has stopped producing the spare Rei bodies," Fuyutsuki said gingerly, waiting in fear of Gendo's reaction. "As of 7:07 this morning, it has been producing these instead." 

"Cause?"

The head scientist flipped forward several pages on his clipboard, reading frantically. "Uh…um, we have hypothesized the Seventeenth angel, Tabris, made physical contact with the Lillith body before it was destroyed by Unit 01. This may have caused a gap in Lillith's inherent blue-pattern DNA to be filled with his genetic material instead of Rei Ayanami's. That act caused Lillith, with its newly formed torso made primarily from genetically incomplete scar tissue, to gain an inherently male trait in its progressive regeneration."

"This was SEELE's plan from the beginning," Fuyutsuki whispered hatefully. "They wanted to create tools of their own with our hands." Gendo dismissed the scientists and sat down in a cold, metal chair. He removed his glasses and rubbed his temples wearily. Fuyutsuki stood over his shoulder, looking at the body on the exam table intently.

"They advanced another step, and had they acquired Rei III earlier, we would be unable to cause…Third Impact." Fuyutsuki spoke in a hushed reverence. Third Impact was a horrible deed, both Gendo and Fuyutsuki understood that, but it was also something that they simply could not keep themselves from doing. They had been handed the keys to heaven's door, yet in opening it they would destroy all humanity. That fate, however, simply paled compared to the overall achievement that they would have. They would transcend mortality, transcend nature, and transcend god. And, there was Yui.

*****

Rei stepped from the bathroom, drying her hair with a fluffy blue towel. It was the only piece of cloth that touched her body. She walked nonchalantly into the living room, followed by a neat path of elliptic water droplets. Shinji was reading a magazine on the couch, singing along a bit to "Strawberry Fields Forever" on his SDAT. _Living is easy with eyes closed, Misunderstanding all you see. _Rei strolled over and sat beside him.

"What are you listening to?" she asked in a quiet, polite voice.

Shinji pulled a headphone out of his left ear and turned to her. "Oh its just some…" he stopped mid-sentence, his eyes trailing down in shock. He gripped the magazine so hard it slipped right through his fingers, and then he let out high pitch squeak and back away from her, covering his face with a pillow.

"Have I disturbed you?" 

"Rei! I…I…I'm sorry…I," Shinji blubbered from underneath the pillow.

"Why?" she asked, her red eyes widening in concern. Shinji couldn't answer, he just went on stammering incoherently. Rei paused and looked down at her nude form, still dripping wet. "Oh, I will dry myself off. I am getting your couch wet."

"It's not that!" Shinji finally managed. Rei cocked her head to one side, trying to peer at his face behind the pillow. Finally, she nudged her way forward so they were staring face to face. She was troubled, afraid of having offended him. 

"Have I offended you, Ikari-kun? That was not my intent."

Shinji swallowed and tugged at his collar, feeling very hot despite the overall cool climate of the room. "No, Rei, you didn't do anything wrong. I'll continue discussing this with you, but, could you just…put some clothes on, first?" he squeaked.

Rei looked down at herself, understanding now. Shinji was bothered by her nudity. It was uncomfortable to him. She had never felt particularly modest or embarrassed in her life; it was a learned feeling, not an instinct. She had to be naked quite often, for the special synch tests and other tasks. It was quite natural to her, and she actually preferred to be unclothed.

"I will…make my manner of dress more appropriate," she said, sort of embarrassed and confused. Rei got off the couch and began to slip away, but looked back over her shoulder. Shinji peered tenuously over the pillow, and saw her lithe neck, tapering down to the smooth, spade-shaped shoulder blades on her exposed back. Her skin looked like it had been frosted with confectioner's sugar. It was a pale, milky white with a sort of warmth underneath. He was quickly drawn up to her perfect, oval face and hypnotic eyes, shining with the color of rose petals wet with dew. "Thank you, Shinji-kun," she said. 

_She used my first name_, Shinji thought. It felt wonderful. Far better than the feeling of arousal he had from the brief moment he looked at her naked body, this was a sort of inner warmth that made him feel both overjoyed and peaceful in the same instant. _She wants to stay here_, he thought, the feeling growing. _She…cares about me_, he ventured, daring to believe that he could care about her as well.

Suddenly, Shinji wanted to know more about Rei. Despite the hideous truth of the dummy plugs, he wanted to know everything about her. He oftentimes got this feeling about her, much like his mother. It was unsettling, to think that Rei could be related to him. _We are so different_, he thought, _and yet so alike_.

End part6 


	7. Chapter 7

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Apocryphal Rhythms

Part7****

****

by ZERØ's Wings

Rei took her clothes from the dryer and quickly slipped back into them. The jeans and blouse were unusually casual clothing for her; Dr. Akagi had suggested she buy them on their first and only shopping trip together, less than a year ago. She found them to be far more comfortable than her school uniform and her plugsuit, the only other articles of clothing she owned.

Rei was excited by the idea of living with Ikari-kun, and Major Katsuragi. She had always abhorred social functions, and remained quite distant from most people, but now she would be sharing her living space with two people she already knew and found agreeable.

_Agreeable? Isn't Ikari far more than that to you?_ The harping, shrill child's voice of Rei I demanded. Rei III shook her head. _I do not know. I care about him, but I have not had time to assess my own feelings. Also, I do not know if those feelings are mutual between us._

_Are you afraid that they aren't?_ The voice said, and then dissipated, letting that question echo vexingly in Rei's head. She resumed dressing herself, but was now visibly shaken.

My mind was not meant to progress this far, Rei thought. I can feel myself pushing past borders, running down gates, letting emotions come as they will. She was just about to put a sock on her left foot, thereby completing her outfit, when a horrible tremor rushed through her body. Rei bit down into the loose skin in the joint of her forefinger and thumb. This pain was worse than any before, and was accompanied by the worst rush of memories she had yet experienced. She could taste blood in her mouth, she was biting so hard, but her body didn't feel a thing. The last coherent thought that entered her mind was the image of a bottle of pills, lying forlorn on the bathroom sink at her apartment. Then, her body and mind collapsed before an assault of static images and half-forgotten words. ****

Rei saw herself constantly falling through immense panes of stained glass. Each pane was a distinct, usually painful memory, fragmented into bold colors that shattered up around her into crystalline forms. The murder of Rei I, Unit 00's activation test, Unit 01 rejecting her violently, and the self-detonation of Unit 00 all rushed up to meet her, then exploded into colorful shrapnel. Her kaleidoscopic plummet was accompanied by a thousand voices, spoken from a thousand mouths all humming in her skull and blasting any independent thoughts from her mind. It was a complete sensory overload.

Old hag//TabHeRisWhoAbOverElComes—108\\7 Eyes(Englel) Sins Names(Angelus) Virtues Members(Colors)-"Why don'tCan't killyou try smilingthe sameTo become one?"

Rei's entire body was shrinking away as her mind expanded into the horrible, blight-ridden fields of the human psyche. Soon she was just a featureless head, or perhaps only a pair of eyes and ears, floating through the colorful barriers of stained glass memories as her subconscious screamed at her. Finally, what was left sentient of Rei fell through a final stained glass window, one depicting the Lance of Longinus floating, with the scarred, pallid surface of the moon behind it. Beyond that last colorful panel were the figures of Adam and God, each with an index finger outstretched, just about to make contact. She fell into the space between the two fingers, into an oily darkness, a liquid void that crushed her identity. 

There were no tormenting voices in the void. They had all gone. Even Rei Ayamani was gone.

*****

Shinji's stomach made a grumbling noise. He left his SDAT on the couch and moseyed over to the kitchen for a snack. It was there that he met up with Misato, who was dressed in her official NERV uniform, complete with her red beret and buttoned-over jacket flaps. She had let her hair down, however, which was unusual when she was dressed this formally.

"I've been called in," she said flatly. "I'll be home late tonight, so go ahead and make yourself dinner."

"Misato-san, could Rei stay here a few days?" Shinji said tentatively.

"Fine by me," she said, gritting her teeth a little. Despite Shinji's constant self-deprecation and Asuka's rampant bitchiness, Rei was the child who made her feel the most uncomfortable, especially since learning the truth of the dummy plugs. "She can stay in Asuka's room, if she's going to be here a few days," Misato offered.

"Oh, no," Shinji replied. "Rei can sleep in my room. I'll take the couch. Asuka would have a fit if she found out we were renting her room." Misato and Shinji almost laughed at this, at a memory of what was, but the terrible reality of the present stifled them both.

 "Did she say when she'd be coming over?" Misato asked.

"Actually, she's already here," Shinji explained. "Sh-she uh, she came by last night," he stuttered.

Misato raised a single eyebrow; then laughed when she saw the nervous look on Shinji's face. She had no reason to worry about them. She ruffled up Shinji's hair a bit. "Hold down the fort while I'm gone, Shinji-kun." She winked at him and he gave her a limp, weary smile. In the next moment, she was out the door.

Shinji sighed and opened the refrigerator. There were a few bags of ice and some snacks, but Misato had cleared out all the beer. She had stopped drinking since Kaji died. Shinji got out a bag of chips and walked back through the house while munching on them. He paused when he reached his bedroom, seeing that the door was wide open. Rei must be done changing, he thought. He approached tentatively, slipping off his shoes to ensure he did not make too much noise.

Just as Shinji was about to look into his bedroom, he felt a warm liquid run up against his foot. He turned toward its source, the laundry room, and through the slight crack in the door he saw a single hand lying palm up on the floor. Shinji frantically burst into the room, and instantly his face became ghostly white and the breath was sucked right from between his lips.

"Oh my god…"

Rei was sprawled across the floor, her face mashed against the cold tiles. Blood was rushing thickly from her ears, mouth and nostrils. Her soft, blue hair was tangled and disheveled, soaking up some of the blood that pooled around her face. A second pool of blood was by her feet, and it ran up the left leg of her jeans like a fat, red ribbon, and punctuated between her legs, from which more blood was flowing. Her eyes were turned upwards, toward the sky, and they were cloudy, dull, and lifeless.

Shinji stood there for a moment, unable to move. His eyes were locked on her face, her beautiful face, which was now crumpled, covered with blood. He felt like throwing up, or screaming at the top of his lungs, or just doing something, but he was frozen in that spot, terrified and overwhelmed.

Finally, Shinji found himself able to move again, and he stumbled back, away from her, away from that horrible sight. He reached frantically for a phone, his first instinct was to call for an ambulance. As he picked up the receiver, though, he realized that there might not be a doctor in Tokyo-3 who could effectively treat her. He called NERV headquarters instead.

*****

Gendo Ikari sat in his office, brooding silently with his gloved hands folded in front of his face. His carrion-tinted glasses betrayed nothing of his underlying doubts and fears, not even to Fuyutsuki. Gendo's concentration was suddenly broken by a sharp, irritating tone. He sighed and reached for the phone under his desk.

"Speak," he commanded in a grim voice.

"Father!" Shinji yelled out desperately.

"What is it?" Gendo asked coldly.

"It's Rei, she came over to my place and uh, a few minutes ago she uh, well she--she's bleeding, th-there's a lot of blood," he babbled, sounding on the edge of tears. "Um, she uh, she's still breathing and she has a pulse, but she-she she lost so much blood, uh, oh god," and with that he broke down and began sobbing uncontrollably. Gendo was equally frightened and concerned, but he had no time for his son's hysterics.

"She's at your apartment? I'll send over an emergency team immediately. Just stay there, don't try to move her," Gendo didn't wait for his son's reply. He slammed the phone down and barked several orders in Fuyutsuki's direction.

"Fuyutsuki, head for the brig, we require Dr. Akagi's services."

"She may be less than enthusiastic about helping Rei," Fuyutsuki said, scratching his chin. "She did destroy the dummy system, after all."

"I don't care!" Gendo said, whipped into a fury. "Use any methods at your disposal to persuade her. Is that clear?"

Fuyutsuki looked nauseous. He sighed a bit, wishing that his commander hadn't given him this…unpleasant duty. "It is perfectly clear," he said with a stiff nod.

Gendo turned away from him and dialed the number for NERV's emergency medical team. He cursed under his breath, then gazed out to the fiery afternoon sky. The clouds were orange and purple streaks, assembled chaotically across a vermillion canvas. It was somehow appropriate to be watching the sky die in the fiery embers of the sun, whilst all his plans and hopes came crashing down around him.

End part7 


	8. Chapter 8

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Apocryphal Rhythms

Part8

by ZERØ's Wings

By the time the first medical team arrived, the blood pooled around Rei's head had dried out, turning a dark burgundy. The specialized NERV EMTs gingerly picked her up using a series of leather bound straps to support her spine, head and neck in case of injury. They didn't pay any mind to the distraught young boy, huddled in a corner under a coffee table, clutching his knees and rocking back and forth.

*****

Fuyutsuki felt very alone as he marched down a dank corridor to retrieve Dr. Ritsuko Akagi. The labyrinthine innards of NERV headquarters were a tribute to all the atrocities spawned by the advancement of human science. He reached the detention area, a narrow hall lined with impenetrable metal bulkheads. Behind each bulkhead was a tiny cell that would, in any normal prison, be considered solitary confinement used for storing only the most dangerous criminals. And yet, the brig's only occupant was the relatively mild-mannered Dr. Akagi, who had never harmed a living being in her entire life. However, her destruction of the dummy plug ensured that the third incarnation of Rei would be the last. Although it was perhaps her greatest act of love for Gendo Ikari, it was also the act that he would never forgive her for, the act that made him hate her.

He came at last to Ritsuko's cell. He winced as he swiped his crimson keycard through the electronic lock. The steel panels of the door shuddered; then slid back with an awful grinding sound. Dr. Akagi sat upright on her bed in a very dignified manner, almost as if she had been expecting him. She was wearing a blue, wool-knit sweater her grandmother had given her. It had a grey cat knitted onto the front.

"You are needed," Fuyutsuki ordered flatly.

"I'm not your whore," Ritsuko hissed. "Ikari just keeps me down here in the shadows, the dirty little secret, and calls me up when his own incompetence grinds you all to a halt." Fuyutsuki ignored her.

"The first child is in critical condition. You will make a diagnosis and operate on her if need be."

Ritsuko was nearly doubled over with bitter laughter. "You want me to operate on Rei? Ikari must be really fuckin' desperate if he has to call me to patch up his little doll." Fuyutsuki's eyes narrowed slightly.

"That's enough," he said. He grabbed her roughly by the arm to pull her along.

"Leave me here," she muttered. "I'd rather be dead." Fuyutsuki ignored her, dragging her limp body into the elevator. "You here me?" she screamed vehemently as they began to rise toward the hospital branch. "I'd rather be dead, than help her."

Soon enough though, Ritsuko was dressed in her usual medical garb, with an array of stainless steel instruments laid out before her. Fuyutsuki only had to put a gun to her head once through the whole process. However, when he did, she just stared down the barrel with such an empty, uncaring gaze as to make the threat nothing more than a pointless formality.

"You fool," she said with a tinge of hatred. "I want to die. Can't you see that?"

Fuyutsuki put his sidearm back in its holster. "Then your punishment shall be life, if you cannot save that girl."

"So I can't win, huh?" Ritsuko mused, wiping a single, poisonous tear from her eye.

*****

Ritsuko was pulled into a brightly lit, stark white room, and she winced, squinting, her eyes unused to so much light. She made out a single shape, a black pillar in the middle of the blinding white. It was Gendo Ikari. His stare permeated every mental barrier she had set up, and she felt like she would shrivel up into nothing just standing before him.

Gendo motioned to Rei, who was lying on an operating table against the right wall. Dr. Akagi could barely see the child at first, her pale white skin blending with that of the walls around her. Only her eyes betrayed her location; the two red orbs that stared up, unfocused, at the ceiling. Soon, Ritsuko's eyes had adjusted to the light, and she saw not just Rei's crimson eyes, but the surprised, open-mouthed expression that had frozen on her waxwork face.

"How long has she been unconscious?" Ritsuko asked wearily.

"Approximately thirty minutes," was Fuyutsuki's clipped response. "The EMTs that brought her in believed she experienced some kind of cerebral hemorrhage."

Ritsuko shook her head. "That doesn't explain the vaginal bleeding."

"Bleeding?" Fuyutsuki asked. "She's just menstruating."

"Rei can't menstruate," the doctor barked back impatiently. "She doesn't even have a uterus. We had to give each spare body a hysterectomy so that we could insert their S2 organ."

Gendo spoke up for the first time, issuing controlled, moderate tones. "You must make a diagnosis quickly, doctor. Very soon Rei will be past the point of surviving any kind of operation."

How can he sound so calm? Ritsuko thought incredulously. Rei is all but a lost cause now, and he hasn't even broken a sweat. Ritsuko was struck suddenly with an idea. She ripped open a jar full of cotton swabs, and took a small dab of blood from each of Rei's bleeding orifices. She placed each sample in a separate dish and took her microscope off the top shelf.

"There's no time for one of your little science projects!" Fuyutsuki yelled impatiently. Gendo remained silent however. He felt he was just grasping the tip of some great realization, something Shinji had said. Ritsuko waved a hand to silence them as she studied each sample. Suddenly, she twitched and tittered, and quickly checked each microscope a second time.

"I was correct," she said, just a bit of her pride creeping back into the statement. "The substance that Rei is releasing is not blood."

"Then what is it?" Gendo demanded, his brow folded over itself like a rolling thundercloud.

"It's LCL, mostly. There are some trace elements of plasma and red blood cells, but they only affect its coloration. It seems her body is using a very unusual method to clear waste products from her circulatory system."

With those words, Gendo's mouth parted slightly, and was left ajar as the breath was suddenly pulled from his lungs. It was something that his son had said over the phone…

_Um, she uh, she's still breathing and she has a pulse, but she-she she lost so much blood, uh, oh god…_

She has a pulse, Gendo mouthed silently. Then, he suddenly regurgitated the words out loud, from his shock.

"That's impossible," Dr. Akagi said. "Rei doesn't have a heart. Her S2 organ, which functions as the nexus of her circulatory system, doesn't register one."

"But she has a pulse," Gendo said again, breathlessly. "Check it." 

Dr. Akagi placed two fingers against the girl's carotid artery. Her mouth dropped open, and she stared up at her Commander, shaking her head in disbelief. "It's just not possible."

*****

Misato was halfway to NERV headquarters when she received a frantic phone call from Hyuga. She turned around in the middle of a four-way intersection, causing hapless drivers to swerve frantically out of her way. She found Shinji under the coffee table, still curled up in a little ball of nihilism and fear. Misato picked him up by both arms and hauled him out to the car, trying to ignore the circlet of drying blood and cerulean blue hairs left on the floor of the laundry room.

"I can't take this," Shinji whispered as he lied prostrate in the backseat of Misato's car. "It's too much, too quickly. Everything was okay…and then it all went bad, so fast, so much," he shivered and curled back up into a fetal position. Misato looked back at him through her rear-view mirror and shuddered.

"I'm sorry Shinji," was all she could say.

Shinji had tears coming down his face now. "I don't want to live…if everyone I touch…becomes miserable and dies."

End part8 


	9. Chapter 9

Author's Note: Sorry about the extended wait on this part. School finally caught up with me. Enjoy, and keep the reviews flowing!

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Apocryphal Rhythms

Part9****

****

by ZERØ's Wings

Gendo, Ritsuko, and Fuyutsuki all hovered around Rei's crumpled form. The sun had finally slipped under the cusp of the horizon, and even its embers had darkened to bruised blues and purples. The room was soaked in the eerie cobalt glow of twilight. 

About thirty minutes after Ritsuko began examining Rei in the NERV hospital ward, Rei passed a small amount of urine, blood, and a glowing, pink object about the size and shape of a marble. Ritsuko picked up the tiny S2 organ using a pair of surgical tongs, and studied it carefully under her microscope. After a moment she sat back and rubbed her forehead, deep in thought. "I think I'm beginning to understand," the doctor said at last. "Rei's body seems to be flushing out all elements of her angel physiology."

"Why is she unconscious?' Gendo asked, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

"For one thing, she's lost an incredible amount of fluid. She's lucky to be alive, but the IV line should keep her that way. Also, her body has rejected the S2 implant. Now, she can only rely on a heart which is probably still in a prenatal stage of development. It must be working overtime to keep her alive, even in this comatose state."

"How will her rejection of the implant affect our project?" Gendo asked in a narrow, dangerous voice.

Ritsuko shook her head. "There's absolutely no way that Rei could hope to fuse with Lillith," she said almost triumphantly. "She's a completely different person physically. Even the Yui Ikari in her has been lost in the rewriting of her DNA."

"That's unacceptable," Gendo said firmly. "You'll have to begin work on a new spare body. We'll implant the organ in it and go ahead with the schedule."

"But to do that, we'll need to splice and synchronize the current Rei's cells," Ritsuko argued back. "There's no way she'd survive that process!" 

"Do as I say," was Gendo's abrupt, callous reply.

"You can't be serious!" Ritsuko screamed hoarsely. "As soon as your little girl becomes human, you just throw her away for the sake of the damn project? I thought I lost you to Rei. But now, it seems you don't even care about her! Are we all just your toys? Don't you care about anyone!!?" Bitter, hysterical tears dropped from Ritsuko's eyes and evaporated the second they hit her face, which was red and superheated from all that yelling at the top of her lungs. "How could you…" she whispered.

Gendo turned to his second-in-command and gave him a quick nod. Fuyutsuki dutifully took Ritsuko by the arm and dragged her back to the brig. As soon as he had left the room, Gendo whipped around furiously and punched a metal tray. The tray yielded an empty chime, and blood flowed from between Gendo's knuckles.

*****

Shinji sat in a fold-out chair at Asuka's bedside. He watched her chest rhythmically rise and fall. It was strange, seeing her in like this. It was the first time he had seen human body that was so utterly unresponsive, one in which the miraculous spark of life had been dimmed and she was little more than a self-sustaining hunk of meat. The fact that she still drew breaths and her heart still beat was a testament to her robust stubbornness.

Shinji drifted down the halls as if in a dream. The blanched halls were extremely bright, almost blindingly so. The curious, neutral scent of disinfectants covered every surface. Shinji saw the door labeled R. Ayanami. He opened it without feeling its touch. His hands registered no sensation. He floated into the room, unable to feel his own footsteps. The experience was incredibly surreal for Shinji. _Nothing is real…nothing to get hung about._ He couldn't believe anything about the room he was in, least of all the frail, unconscious body in the bed before him.

"Rei…" he murmured in disbelief. He voice had dropped to an inaudible, breathy whisper. "I need you to wake up. I can't be alone. Not now."

There was no response.

"I got so close to you…so quickly…why did this have to happen?"

No response.

"Come back to me, please. Without you, without Asuka, without," he winced, "…Kaoru…I'm nothing. I'd rather be dead." Shinji tried to cry, he tried so hard, but he had no more tears to cry with. His own body had betrayed him as well.

A nurse knocked on the door delicately. "I'm sorry, but visiting hours are over," she said quietly.

Shinji's shoulders sagged a bit, not quite slumping, but sort of falling into second gear. He turned around, and bore down on the nurse with a cavernous pair of eyes. In those watery blue orbs, the nurse could see straight through his head, and feel the moldy remnants of his broken soul.

"Sorry," she said gently. She shut the door and did not bother Shinji again. 

The sun rose in the morning, brightening and darkening the room with drifting shadows and wispy clouds. The shadows grew out into the room as encroaching tentacles of darkness. Then, the fire of sunset. The serenity of twilight. The neutral darkness of a night sky. The sun rose and fell three more times, and Shinji remained in that chair. He had no concept of time. The world spun around him on its own course, guiding forces and bodies that he had no control over and even less understanding of.

On the fourth day of waiting, Shinji felt frail and empty, not because of his lack of food or sleep, but from a dawning hopelessness toward Rei's condition. He got out of his chair and walked shakily to her bedside. He collapsed in front of her and put his head down on her bed. Tears finally came to his parched, red eyes.

As Shinji wept softly at Rei's bedside, a soft, gentle hand settled on his forehead. The hand, smooth as lotion and carrying the faint scent of vanilla, ran delicate fingers through his hair. That scent, that touch, that perfect, innocent delicacy, was something that Shinji recognized instantly.

"Rei!" he cried out. He quickly modulated his voice, however, remembering Rei's weakened condition and the fact that he was in a hospital. "I'm…I'm very glad to see you Rei."

"Why?" she asked, exhausted and disoriented.

"Because…I love you," he said, not believing the frothy syllables even as they escaped his throat.

"That's good," she said in an odd voice. She made a sudden croaking noise, bowed her head, and threw up into Shinji's lap. He sat there, looking at the pile of vomit covering his pants, and he started to laugh. Shinji hadn't laughed many times in his entire life, and had really meant it even fewer times. It was this uncontrollable, bubbly laughter that came up from places that had been numb or dead in Shinji for years. Rei looked at him strangely, and her eyelids began to flutter. "I require more rest," she said in her normally precise, formal voice. A moment later, she was out cold, and Shinji was left with a strange, silly little grin on his face.

End part9 


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Note: This is the first time I've made any significant changes to a chapter of my fic, but I've decided, concurring with many of my helpful reviewers, that the original ending to chapter 10 was simply too abrupt. That, coupled with the fact that I didn't have enough material left for another filler chapter, prompted my decision to elongate this one. And with that, I must also, sadly, announce that this is the penultimate chapter in Apocryphal Rhythms. To all who have left reviews: Thanks again for you support and advice!

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Apocryphal Rhythms

Part10****

****

by ZERØ's Wings

Misato returned later that day with a fresh pair of clothes for Shinji and his SDAT player. He was still sitting in a small, foldout chair at Rei's bedside, waiting anxiously for any further sign from her. Misato smiled and patted him on the head; her face warm, honest, and motherly.

"I have to go back to headquarters, but I just wanted to tell you that the doctors think Rei will be okay now. She's recovered from the coma and just needs rest. You don't have to stay any longer."

Shinji shook his head. "Yes I do. I have to stay," he said definitively. Shinji returned Misato's affection with an equally warm, open smile. "Thank you."

Misato was now sure that Shinji really did feel something special toward Rei. Even the briefest moment shared between the two children was enough to rejuvenate his broken spirit. Misato delicately kissed Shinji's forehead and left for work.

Shinji quickly changed clothes in the bathroom, keeping the door open just a crack so that he could at least keep one eye on Rei. She was so beautiful, so serene, lying there sleeping under a curtain of golden sunlight.

"…I love you."

He still couldn't believe that those words had left his throat. He wasn't even sure that he felt that way until those words escaped him, but now everything had become so clear. Every thought that terrified him, every possibility that paralyzed him, had become trivial. He might actually be in love, and because of that, all was right with the world.

*****

Rei swam through fresh-blown liquid glass, her mind separating the dazzling, soft colors into millions of luminous, rainbow striped bands of light. She watched as every minute cell in her body slowly repaired itself and joined a system that composed an entire organism. She felt her physical form returning. She felt awareness returning. She had emerged from the void, and the harping voices were silent. Rei I was dead, but she was also an integral part of Rei III's mind now. Rei II had also returned, filling her with love and dreams. She also felt a two elements leave: the volatile, fearsome spirit of Lillith, and the timid, pall-covered spirit of Yui. They were forced out by the new consciousness that was called Rei Ayanami.

*****

Shinji sat and listened to "The Long and Winding Road" on his SDAT. When the song ended, he saw a few leaves drift down outside the window panes, their crusty, russet skins flitting in the cool currents like angel feathers. Autumn had returned to the world.

Seven minutes later, Rei opened her eyes for the second time. She immediately squinted and closed them again. _Too much light!_ her atrophied irises cried out. To her eyes, the world was bathed in an impossibly bright white light. Slowly, she opened them back up, trying to adjust. This time, Shinji looked down, and she saw his wonderful, innocent face again.

"Ayanami!" he cried. "You're back!"

Rei's thin, bruised lips curled up into the most fragile of smiles. When Shinji looked upon her face, he was taken to another world. His entire body tingled with pent-up joy. He leaned over, full onto the bed, and hugged her tightly. He recoiled from his own hug almost instantly, realizing just how frail she still was. It felt like holding a porcelain doll, as though she might crack and break apart with the slightest amount of pressure.

"It's wonderful to see you awake again, Ayanami."

"Ikari-kun, where am I?" she said, still groggy and disoriented.

"You're in the hospital, at NERV. Room 404, right next to Asuka. Remember? I've been right here the whole time."

Rei bit her lip and held a hand to her forehead, lost in thought. She felt disoriented, dizzy even. Another odd  "urp!" sound suddenly escaped her throat, and she got a bad taste in her mouth. Shinji saw this, eyes widening, and quickly helped her to the bathroom to spare his second set of clothes.

*****

Rei emptied her stomach into a wastebasket under the sink, heaved dryly for a few moments, and then slumped down beside it, moaning softly and rubbing her stomach. Shinji gave her some water afterwards, knowing her throat would be completely raw. As she drank ravenously, water running down onto her collar, Shinji eyed her with concern. Small bits of vomit were in her hair, as well as on her clothes and hands.

"Oh Rei, you're a mess," Shinji said. "You should take a shower. You'll feel a lot better."

"I cannot stand," Rei answered shakily. "I cannot wash myself in the shower stall. My body has not yet recovered."

"Uhm…well, I suppose I could do it for you," Shinji said, blushing furiously. "I mean, if that's okay with you…I-I promise I won't look!"

"You won't look at what?" Rei said, her vermilion eyes large and curious.

"Umm…you know, your, y-you. I won't look at you."

Rei blinked three times, then decided to give up any further questioning. She simply said, "That will be fine."

Shinji stood behind Rei and removed her hospital gown. It came off quite easily; it was a single garment held together only by a few loosely knotted straps. It slid away like a curtain, and he was unable to take his eyes from the sight of her bare back. _Well, there are worse things I could be staring at_, he thought, and made sure his attention did not stray from it. However, even something as innocuous as her back caused a potent and insuppressible arousal in Shinji. The smooth palette of vanilla skin with a single, broken line of raised mounds; her taught vertebrae peeking up, was uniquely beautiful. 

Shinji ran a shaking hand through his hair, his face still red as a firecracker. "Um, I guess, whenever you're ready, I'll start the shower."

"I am ready now," Rei said calmly, turning around a bit so she could look directly into Shinji's face. His wavering, lapis eyes locked with hers for but a moment, and then he had to turn away from her. He focused instead on a towel hanging on an aluminum rack. It was a _fascinating_ towel. In fact, it was the most interesting towel he had ever laid eyes on.

Shinji turned away from the towel and quickly covered his face, then walked across the bathroom, feeling his way along the white, tiled walls, and turned on the shower. He whipped around, covering his eyes again and marched back over to Rei. He gingerly placed his hands under her arms and lifted her halfway to her feet. She made a quick, shrill cry, almost a gasp, and then steadied herself. Her ribs ached painfully as he guided her through each step. He finally deposited her in another heap by the frosted glass doors of the shower and tested the water with an outstretched hand.

"It's nice and warm," Shinji declared, rubbing a few droplets between his fingers.

"Are you coming in?" Rei asked, soft-spoken and meticulous. Shinji yelped and stumbled back.

"Uh…Uh…I…" he stammered.

"I require your help in washing myself," She said slowly, deliberately. She then spoke in a more tender voice, trying to imitate Shinji's own concern for her modesty. "It's all right, I won't look." She put her hands over her eyes. Shinji had to smile at this, but he was incredibly nervous all the same. He exhaled deeply, collected himself, then turned away and began to take off his shirt. He fumbled with the buttons, his fingers working with both furious resolve and terrified apprehension.

At last he got his shirt off, and then went to remove his pants. Now, his hands were almost useless, they shook so violently that he couldn't even move them. He stopped, breathed deeply a few times, and considered his actions. _I shouldn't be this nervous,_ he thought. _We've both seen the other naked, we're fairly comfortable around each other, and she needs my help. She's so weak she can hardly stand. What am I so worried about?_

He unbuckled his belt and slid his pants and underwear down. In that instant he was reminded of the source of all his problems: a certain, insurgent part of his anatomy. His mind reeled as horrible possibilities presented themselves once again. _What if she sees me like this. She'll think I'm some kind of pervert. Can't my body just listen to me and do what I tell it? Shrink! Shrink, damn you!_

At last Shinji was satisfied that he had regained control of himself. He turned around, and saw that Rei still had her eyes dutifully covered. He sighed and stepped into the shower, lathered up the soap, and washed her back.

"You know, Rei, the last time we talked…" he began nervously.

"You mean now, in the hospital?"

"Yes, the first time."

"A few minutes ago?" she asked.

"No, a few hours ago, when I said…" he paused, biting his lip. He didn't want to say those words again. It frightened him much more, now that he was no longer distraught with sadness and tragedy.

"Umm…" he tried to phrase it a different way, "uh, Rei, do you remember me saying anything…important, or, uh, special to you recently?"

"You said it was wonderful to see me awake again." She turned around and smiled at him, at the same time exposing her breasts. Shinji let out a mortified squeak and pretended he had gotten soap in his eyes.

"Umm, uh, no, that wasn't it," he said, fishing blindly for a towel. "Don't you remember at all the first time you got up?"

"I just woke up a few minutes ago," Rei said, handing him a towel.

_She doesn't remember_, Shinji thought. He felt like he had just been hit in the stomach with a bag of bricks. He felt like the world had just burned up into ashes around him.  Shinji rubbed his eyes vigorously with the towel, gritting his teeth. 

Very gradually, the acid in his stomach settled back down. He began to examine the situation more rationally. Now, Shinji felt almost relieved now that she didn't remember their first conversation. _She was awfully groggy_, he recalled. Besides, he wasn't sure if he was ready to declare his feeling to her anyway. The gesture had been premature, and he had been scared out of his mind for her life. He knew that if she died, he would regret not telling her forever. Fortunately, he no longer had to worry about such horrible things. Rei was going to be all right.

The feeling of love was a very complex thing that he wasn't even on the cusp of understanding. Rei had become more important to him, now that he understood her a little better. However, as much as he cared about her, she had also been a security blanket for him. A constant, human presence to distract him from Kaoru's death and Asuka's coma. _Have I just been using Rei selfishly all this time?_

_It hasn't been that long,_ he thought_. I still have time. I'm not afraid of Rei anymore, but I still don't understand her completely. But, that will come, with time._ Despite this reassurance, some small voice deep inside Shinji was telling him he didn't have any time left. He felt some great pressure building on the horizon, but he couldn't find its exact source, or identify it. This was Lillith's call, the sounding of the final horn before humanity's fate was sealed. Her call was drawing all human souls closer together. Every person felt this in some dark, murky region of their subconscious.

Shinji shook his head, startled out of his fog by the sound of running water and the feeling of hot steam rising around his face. "Um, Rei, can you turn around again so I can finish washing your back?" Shinji strained to keep his eyes averted.

"Oh, of course." Rei turned away as asked. Shinji grabbed the soap and finished scrubbing Rei's back. He could feel her tense muscles beginning to relax. She leaned her head back a bit, wishing the feeling would never end. The massaging motions of the soap bar in his hands relieved her soreness, and, coupled with the thin jets of warm water, it felt like absolute paradise, a level of comfort she had never experienced.

"I only have cold water at my apartment," Rei said, closing her eyes and letting the water run down her chest and back through her hair. "This is very good."

"Yeah," Shinji said with a nervous chuckle. "There's nothing a warm shower can't cure."

"That and chicken soup, according to your rather unorthodox medical practices."

"Yes, that's right," Shinji said, chuckling again. He cleaned her hair thoroughly with shampoo, working fastidiously to remove every last trace of her vomit.

Rei slowly turned around, bracing herself against the shower door. Shinji anticipated this motion and quickly looked down at his feet before she was fully turned around. Rei eyed him questioningly, still somewhat confused by his embarrassment. She blinked; then stifled a yawn as she stood upon shaky legs. She was beginning quite relaxed, and that brought back a strong wave of fatigue. "I require more rest," she said, "Please finish washing me."

Shinji swallowed nervously. _How can I do this?_ he thought, the warmth of arousal spreading back into him. _I can't hardly look at her, let alone touch her._

"Why do you hesitate?" she asked. "I require your assistance."

"I just can't, Rei."

"I am giving you my permission, Shinji-kun. You may touch me, because it is necessary."

Shinji raised the washcloth, his hand trembling, and hastily scrubbed her face, neck, chest, and arms. He waited as the soap and water flowed together and poured down over her body in bubbly streams. Rei's head tilted back and she stood unevenly, her arms hanging limp by her sides. Shinji ignored his frothing hormones and finished cleaning her.

"There you go," he said with a good-natured smile, "all clean!" She was already fast asleep. A peal of laughter almost left Shinji, but he stifled it at the last moment to keep from waking her.  Instead, he turned the water off, and gingerly carried her out of the shower, and wrapped both of their nude forms up in fluffy white bathrobes.

Rei woke up for a moment, feeling the warmth of the robe against her wet skin, and looked up to Shinji, her eyes wide, child-like, and completely innocent. Shinji's heart skipped a beat. Perhaps it skipped two, he couldn't be sure. This moment transcended time. It was perhaps the most incredible, moving expression she had ever allowed Shinji to see. It was a look of absolute comfort, and _belonging_. 

Rei was struck an instant later by a sudden, acute sadness. She had just remembered her duty to the commander. Tomorrow, the Instrumentality Project was to commence. She drew in a quick breath, and her face fell back into its neutral, expressionless safety.

Shinji tucked her back into her bed and pulled up a chair. Shinji helped Rei back into bed, then sat down beside her and turned on his SDAT. Rei sat and watched him intently for a moment, her ruby eyes glistening, and then spoke, slowly, unsure.

"What are you listening to?" she asked. Her voice was hushed, but she was not speaking in her normally quiet tone. This was a small, shy voice that Shinji had never heard before.

"Oh, it's one of my favorites," Shinji said, smiling. "It's another piece by Bach. It's called 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring.'

Then, even more uncertain, her voice wavering: "Can I…listen with you?"

"I'd like that." Shinji got up from his chair and sat down on the bed, beside her. She motioned for him to lie down and he obeyed, staying above the covers just to keep things…appropriate.

Rei turned her head toward Shinji, and she gave him a beautiful, genuine smile that never failed to amaze him. A feeling of coldness and objectivity had often surrounded Rei. Her taciturn, impersonal nature distanced her from people, kept her alone and socially underdeveloped. Now, to see her honestly happy and sharing affection was a rare, and amazing gift to Shinji.

Shinji couldn't have felt safer, lying next to Rei and resting peacefully with his favorite music. Rei's presence alone accounted for much of his feeling of security. She felt almost like a mother to him, there was some innate warmth and tenderness in her.

And yet, he loved her in a completely different way. She had changed noticeably in the short time he had known her, become a more fully realized person, and yet remaining simple and exquisite. _I wish I could stay here forever_, he thought. The song drew to a close, all too soon, and Shinji was terrified that this perfect moment would end, and he would never recover it.

"It's beautiful," Rei said, here eyes closed but the wonderful smile still on her face. "Can we hear it again?"

"Of course! All you have to do is ask." Shinji sank back into his lumpy, uncomfortable pillow. _How does she sleep on these things_? he mused. Then, he was completely taken away by the soft, lilting piano keys. 

*****

Late that night, Rei was startled awake from a host of disturbing nightmares, the first she had ever experienced. From her window, she had a perfect view of the moon, a bald, cobalt sphere, mottled with scars in the cusps of shadows. It was emitting a pale blue aura that Rei found strangely comforting.

Rei could feel the bed move ever so slightly each time Shinji's chest rose and fell. He was sleeping peacefully beside her, still lying above the covers in his bathrobe. She pushed a few locks of dark, brown hair away from his face and smiled.

"We'll be together soon," Rei said. An impenetrable shadow appeared over her. She nodded slowly to herself, not having to look up to know whom it was. It was, of course, Gendo Ikari standing over her like a grim, blackened minaret. 

"Well, let's go. This is the day for which you were created, Rei."

She swallowed hard, returning the poisonous taste of dread to her quaking stomach. Rei managed to keep her mask of pale, elegant flesh intact. Her crimson eyes were locked forward, and served only as mirrors of Gendo's face. He was not wearing his glasses, and Rei was able to stare straight from her soul into his. Gendo's eyes were the same color as Shinji's; in fact, they were strikingly similar. Those were Shinji's eyes after he had maimed Toji. Those were his eyes after he killed Kaoru. Those were his eyes for a brief moment each time she awoke from the land of the dead. They were the eyes of a beautiful person who had lost his soul.

"Yes sir," she managed.

End part10 


	11. Aria

Warning: Contains spoilers for those who haven't seen End of EVA. Also, make sure you've read the revised version of Chapter 10 before you start this. Some non-sexual but nevertheless explicit content in this chapter, and some extreme violence.

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Apocryphal Rhythms

Aria****

****

by ZERØ's Wings

Instrumentality will begin…

            Senseless

            Indiscriminate

            Bloodletting

            Destruction

            Council

            Red Earth

            Judgment

            A Living God

            Separation Anxiety

            Broken

            Mother

            Mother

…Man is beautiful again

*****

Asuka had been regressing over the past weeks, slowly migrating back to the womb. In her EVA, curled up in a fetal position in the river bed, she had felt the after taste of mental rape; another wave of horrible images assaulted her, all containing her mother. In the presence of her mother, Asuka had felt fear for the first and only time in her life. But now, she sought desperately to swim above the vestiges of newly formed life, and to find the light outside her safe, warm envelope.

Depth charges sank into the river

Asuka's fears were long, grasping hands and chains with wicked hooks that dug into her and try to pull her back to the womb. At the center of these fears was her mother's face, serene, beautiful, and attached to a broken neck. Yet as Asuka reached for the light above, it became painfully apparent that this light was the same image, her mother's face, serene, beautiful, and attached to a broken neck. She was caught between two mirrors.

I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. _You're still alive…_ I don't want to die. I don't want to die. _You mustn't die yet. You must live…_ I don't want to die. I don't want to die. _I won't let you die. I will protect you…  _I don't want to die. I don't want to die. _You're still alive. I won't let you die. You mustn't die…_ I don't want to die. I don't want to die. _Please die with me! Don't kill her…_ I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. _You must live…_

I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!!!!

The image that surrounded the face suddenly shifted, and Asuka found herself in her mother's warm embrace. Her mother had always loved her. At the center of all Asuka's fears was the fear of being love. Pain was transmuted into love. Confusion into understanding. Ugliness into beauty. _Mamma!_ Asuka cried; the bitterness expelled from her in joyous tears. 

Asuka soared out of the riverbed, tossing the gargantuan hull of a battleship off her back. Its tremendous shadow fell over an array of trucks and tanks launching an interminable spray of firepower in her direction. The ship cut apart concrete barriers and fell upon the mass of weapons, crushing them as it exploded in a massive plume of orange flames and black smoke.

_Mamma…Mamma! Now I understand!_ Asuka had left her troubles behind, dropping the mass of horrible, paralyzing fears and doubts that had smothered her. She felt lighter than air, and so she sailed across the sky, trailed by thousands of missiles and the white-hot comet tails of rapid artillery fire. _The meaning of the AT field! You were always protecting me!_ A huge smile had swept across the span of Asuka's soft, beautiful face. Always watching over me! She crashed down in the middle of the immense firefight, and laughed with glee as warheads smashed into her AT field, rent and split apart, and then burst into spectacular conflagrations.

"Mamma! We were always together!"

*****

Outside, swirling fires and ragged waves of turf pirouetted in perdition's waltz.

Inside, Shinji wiped Misato's blood from his mouth, and he understood. He would never see her again. He looked down from the smeared blood on his fingertips, to the gaping hole in his chest. It hurt so much…where cold hands had ripped her from him. He had felt the inexorable descent, the spiraling decay of NERV, but now Shinji, personally, felt the forces of change. He would have to change. He would have to bend, warp, and twist his mind so that he could adapt to a new era. He could only see pain and loneliness in the coming years of his life.

As Shinji slowly crumpled in that elevator, an image wafted back into his senses like a sensuous aroma insinuating its way into a room through an open window. It was Rei's spare, beautiful face. Even with Misato gone and NERV being gutted by a violent horde of invaders, Shinji still had something to fight for. 

Misato's final kiss had been accompanied by words of gentle encouragement. "Do your best," were her final words to him. She said that as if the outcome didn't matter, he just had to try his hardest. He took those words, and his love for Rei, and picked himself up just before he reached the elevator floor. He stood tall, determined and proud, at last realizing all the people who had been behind him all along, giving their lives and souls to make sure he could reach this point.

*****

Asuka's bright, red Evangelion stood defiantly in the center of a circle formed by nine white monsters. Their leering, pallid faces, eyeless, protruding skulls, and absurdly wide, luscious, grinning lips completed their bizarre, hellish appearance. The production model Evas stood motionless, waiting for their prey to make the first move. 

"Nine units in three and a half minutes. That's twenty seconds each," Asuka hunched down, a malevolent grin spreading across her face. She was a warrior, she understood that as her purpose, and she relished it. 

In an abrupt move, Asuka lunged forward, her EVA charging over a layer of treetops, and leapt up above the first white Evangelion. It recoiled, panicked, but was unable to act before Unit 02 landed both its feet on the Eva's shoulders. Gripping the edges of its jaws, she tore the unit's head wide open, causing a rush of steaming, hot blood to splash out onto her. Unit 02 dropped forward off the mangled head of the enemy Eva; landing with a thunderous crash that fragmented the rough turf beneath her.

Suddenly, Asuka felt a weight bear down on her. The Evangelion she maimed had stumbled and fallen onto her back; its ruined face still arcing thick streams of cadmium. She grinned, relieved, then picked the Eva up and effortlessly broke it in half over her head. Blood and entrails cascaded down onto unit 02, smearing her view screens with bodily fluids.

"Erste!" she yelled triumphantly, throwing the gore-soaked carcass of her back.

*****

"I loved you best of all," Gendo said in a fierce whisper.

"Liar!" Ritsuko spat. Before she could make another utterance, her body was picked up, her shoes blown off, blood pouring forth from an open wound in her chest.  She floated back like a discarded piece of cloth, the glare in her eyes quickly fading. And then, with a delicate splash, she came down upon her final resting place, a shallow pool of LCL. She took her mother's hand in a warm, beautiful haze, and fled this life.

Gendo lowered his gun, shook his head sorrowfully. _What a waste…_he thought. _Humanity is made to suffer before the end_. 

Rei shivered in the cold halls of Terminal Dogma. She was completely naked and covered with droplets of LCL. Hanging over her was the waxen, crucified giant known as Lillith. Its unformed face was covered with a purple mask marked by the emblem of SEELE. Gendo turned and stood before her, the palm of his right hand opening, presenting to her the embryonic form of Adam. She stared at what would become the hand of god and thought: _This is not how I wish it to be_.

"Take me to my Yui's side," Gendo said. Beneath his usually cold voice, Rei could hear his longing and desperation. He was pleading with her, terrified now of his own isolation. Fuyutsuki had already betrayed him, surrendering headquarters to the SDDF. Now, Ritsuko had been cast aside. Only Rei stood at his side now, as he had always wished it to be. Yet, the circumstances that had brought him to this moment were so horrible. He had reached his ultimate goal in a roundabout fashion, stumbling against the betrayals of his friends, and then stumbling again over their corpses.

"Your AT field is still intact, Rei. You may now discard it, your physical form is no longer necessary," Gendo instructed her tersely. She closed her eyes and concentrated, but it was difficult to reject her own form. One week ago, she had felt old, stretched beyond her limits. But now, since her violent sensory attack, she felt young, renewed. She felt like a teenage girl, not a disintegrating instrument of mankind's complementation. _This is wrong,_ she thought. _All wrong._

Gendo smiled greedily, resolved in his own happiness, in his own self-interest. He had reached his goal. His large, scarred hand moved forward, and roughly cupped Rei's exposed breast. She inhaled sharply, startled at this act. She remembered Shinji washing her, and his hand accidentally moving over the same breast, followed by a near-endless string of apologies. His touch had been warm, gentle, and cautious. Gendo's touch was the exact opposite. His hand felt so cold, and he touched her with a forcefulness that Shinji could never display. He took things by force; it was simply the way he operated.

Gendo looked at his hand, puzzled. The embryo should've reacted with her body, allowing him to pass right through her. And yet, her form remained, defiantly unchanged. He pressed harder against her breast, mashing her small, sensitive nipple. Rei gave a brief whimper in pain, and shivered again at his cold touch.

"I told you to remove your AT field!" Gendo yelled hoarsely, his mind buckling under the weight of his own fear and desperation. Rei's head sunk down as she gathered her strength, building up all the courage that her short, sheltered life had afforded her.

"I am not your doll," she said slowly, the insurrection building in her mind like a tidal wave slowly gathering strength. "I am not a puppet for you to control!" she screamed, her voice rising to octaves it had never before dared to dream of. Her AT field suddenly became visible, a massive wall of blue and orange fire. It pushed Gendo's offending hand back, away from her, melting it down to the wrist. Gendo howled madly in overwhelming pain.

Rei approached the frightened, feeble shadow of her cruel governor. Her crimson eyes held not a drop of sympathy. Rei had feared him, and something in her small, child-like mind had taken that fear and camouflaged it as a sort of belonging. She could not live without being in constant fear of his glare. Now, she was free of his chains, both mental and physical, and she knew that Instrumentality was a horrible mistake that she would never allow him to make. Besides, Lillith no longer provided her with a home. Lillith was crying out for her son, Kaoru. Rei could no longer complete the great, sorrowful being.

Rei's hand wavered; then formed a tight fist, and she set the empty husk of Lillith ablaze in azure flames. The huge being writhed upon its cross, giving a single, mournful cry as the fire devoured it from the inside out. Finally, its great head sunk forward, and the mask fell from it ashen face. There was a huge splash, followed by a metallic clang, and Lillith collapsed, consumed in the raging holocaust of soul fire.

"Sorry," Rei breathed soundlessly to her giant, desiccated mother. "It had to be done." Without another word, Rei focused her attention back onto Gendo, who was slowly getting to his feet with the aid of a metal railing. Behind and below him was an impossibly deep abyss; the dark, hollow womb of the geofront. 

Gendo's stern face collapsed as he looked upon the charred remains of Lillith. His last chance to be with Yui was gone, evaporated into thin air. Shaking with fury, he drew the pistol from his belt again, holding it weakly in his left hand as he nursed the stub that was once his right. He was ready to end the incessant parade of treacheries and suffering. The gun shook in his trembling hand as he trained it upon Rei.

"This is not how it was supposed to happen," Gendo said hatefully, gritting his teeth. "Even you…Rei, my little girl." He turned away as he pulled the trigger, wincing as though he had just shot himself. Gendo shut his eyes tightly as he waited to hear the sound of her body hitting the floor.

Silence.

He shut his eyes even tighter, waves of sorrow crushing his spirit.

Silence.

He shut his eyes painfully tight, the beads of tiny, malformed tears coming to them.

Silence. Rei stood over him, unharmed, suspending the bullet he had fired only inches from her forehead. It would've struck her right between the eyes, a painless, instant death. _Even in his greatest fury, he still shows me mercy,_ she thought in wonderment. _This will be difficult. Shinji might never forgive me. I'm so sorry Shinji…please forgive me._ With that, Rei's face hardened, and she prepared herself for condemning Gendo to death.

"You never understood the true meaning of the AT field," Rei said in a powerful, accusing tone. "It is not a barrier. It is not what separates our minds. It is the energy that we all emanate, because of the invisible bonds that we form with other people. You were afraid of those bonds, and so you sought to destroy them with Instrumentality. But I cannot let that happen."

Rei stripped the casing away from the bullet and caused it to vaporize in midair. White sparks twisted down around her face. With that, Rei took all of her fury, all of her fear, all of the emotions that had been trapped within her for so long, unable to find a release, and focused them into a single instant, a singular universe made up of all the atoms of her body, and all the universes contained with the cores of those atoms. She could not hope to wield this force, but she was able to propel it away from her, and it came down upon Gendo Ikari like a steamroller.

Gendo would've screamed, but his lungs were instantly crushed. Each of his pupils shot down to the size of the head of a pin and he let out a choked gurgle, blood rushing forth from his lips. The world around him had faded into a giant, black blur, illuminated only by Rei's pale, glowing face. She smiled, and her face broke apart into tiny strips of white light that dissolved into the void, leaving him forever.

Gendo was already dead when his viscera, which had been blown right out of his back by the force of Rei's AT field, sloshed against the metal railing. His thick, ropey intestines spilled over the rail and tugged his limp body back toward the edge. Gendo seemed to hang there on the edge of the abyss for an endless moment, and then he jerked back, and his ever-present glasses fell from his face and shattered. The sunken vestige of a man now slipped over the metal precipice, and sailed down into the darkest hell of nothingness. He was gone.

Rei smiled for a moment, her face stained with tears, and then she collapsed from sheer exhaustion. In that same instant, Unit-01 came crashing through the wall above her, Shinji screaming her name franticly above the ear-splitting cataract of rubble.

End - Aria 


End file.
